Heading South (2005) User Reviews (35)

Haunting Film Difficult to Forget, though not for everyone

[blauhund · 7/10 · 13 September 2005]

I saw this at TIFF last night, in the North American premiere. I gather it had been in competition at Venice the week before. Confess I had not heard of the film prior, nor the director and attended as I got two free tickets....

The film takes place in Haiti in the late 70's and is about three older single women visiting a beach resort to take advantage of the sun, sea, sand, and young Haitian men. Essentially sex tourism.

The film explores the relationship of these three women with the younger men, and uses these relationships to explore their relationships with each other and themselves. Each women is looking for something different from their visit, though not all is at appears on the surface.

Charlotte Rampling is radiant as Ellen the oldest of the three, who has a relaxed attitude to the sex, and the almost unspoken transaction with the men. To paraphrase, she always realized that no man would be interested as she aged and always assumed she would pay young men for sex when she got older (believe this is a reference to Simone de Beauvoir). Ellen's focus is on the elegant and charming Legba, as played by newcomer Menothy Cesar (who picked up an award for this performance at Venice last week).

Brenda, as played by Karen Young, is returning to the island for the first time in three years, her life having recently fallen apart . She too has a relationship with Legba from three years prior and is determined, if not obsessed, with renewing it. Ms. Young is given the difficult task of portraying a women at the threshold of middle-age, who is both naive and unwilling to admit to her base desire. She doesn't always pull it off but it is the most difficult role in a film full of challenging performances.

Sue, as played by Louse Pitre a fine French Canadian Actress, is from Montreal and her attitude towards the situation is far more down to earth than her two friends. She understands that things are different "down here", and understands that she would not be treated so well under normal circumstances. No matter, she is determined to enjoy the situation for what it is without complications. In the end she is more of an observer of the conflict that arises between Ellen and Brenda and is meant, I think, to provide a contrast to what is going on behind their masks. She is also the only one who is happy.

The linchpin to the movie is Legba, the young Haitian who is the obsession of both Ellen and Brenda. They believe he is a simple man with simple values, and yet in extended scenes away from the resort, his personal life is revealed to be a nightmare typical of the oppressed poor under Duvalier, further complicated by his relationship with the mistress of a Colonel in Duvalier's army. Cesar is terrific in this role and beautiful to watch.

There is minimal plot in the film withe focus clearly being on character development and exploring the masks people wear, to both protect and fool themselves. Slowly, over the course of the film, Ellen, Brenda and Legba are all revealed to be much different from our initial impressions of them, and more interestingly, their impressions of themselves. The question is whether this is interesting for the the viewer to watch as the film does drag at times. Indeed, I walked out of the film more concerned with where I had parked my car than what I had just watched.

Darn it all, however, when I woke up this morning, this movie was the first thing I thought of and it has haunted me all day. The sad revelations at the end of the film say a lot about human nature and in the end will keep the film in my mind for many weeks to come.

A grim tale of human desire

[Philby-3 · 7/10 · 28 January 2007]

Sex tourism is not a pretty subject, even where, as here, the tourists are attractive middle-aged North American women who have gone to Haiti for some R & R. As the film is based on three short stories by Dany Laferrière, a Haitian writer, we get the Haitian point of view, and not surprisingly at least one local, Albert the hotel manager (Lys Ambroise), does not like what is going on, even though his business depends on it. The gigolos themselves are rather more relaxed, though they have to cope with jealousies between customers and the problem of customers who fall in love with them. However, this is the Haiti of the late 70s, when the dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier was in power. Hence an air of menace lies over proceedings – it may be tropical, but Haiti is no paradise. In fact, this is rather a grim movie.

Proceedings are a little slow, the director Laurent Cantent being addicted to long, static shots, and there is not much in the way of erotic scenes. The resort is not a luxury one, these are not wealthy guests, but the women can buy what they want here. Ellen, the Queen Bee, is outwardly unsentimental about it all but she too becomes emotionally involved with her beach boy. Charlotte Rampling, the vixen for all seasons, plays Ellen with both sensitivity and panache, while Karen Young does a wonderfully self-centred Rachel. She falls in love with the charming Legba (Menthony Cesar), with whom she experienced her first orgasm, at the age of 45, but of course it is a hopeless passion.

I came out with mixed feelings about this film's message. One the one hand, the women are exploiting the young Haitian men, on the other the women are vulnerable and lonely, and non-violent. I'm not at all sure that either side is damaged by the contact, and one of the relationships, between the French Canadian Sue (Louise Portal) and her rather older "boy" seems to be a perfectly healthy one with no illusions on either side. Obviously there are risks for the women (falling in love with the gigolo seems to be the major one) but are they not entitled to some emotional adventure even in staid middle age?

Sex starved in Haiti! YAY!

[Spuzzlightyear · 6/10 · 19 October 2005]

A great topic and script headline 'Heading South' a movie about three women who vacation in Haiti in the 1970's for the sun and surf, but mainly to bed any black men they can find (who are available for the price). I mean, THAT'S fabulous! Who would've thought of that? All of them though, seem to have sights on one man, Legba. The competition for this man, soon becomes to the point that Legba tries to get out of his job as stud-for-hire, to somewhat catastrophic results. The three women, headed by the always excellent Charlotte Rampling, are quite great here, but the star here is the actor playing Legba, Menothy Cesar. The story essentially revolves around him, and he does a great job with actually a really demanding role.

A great complex film

[YNOT_at_the_Movies · 22 August 2006]

I know a lot Americans guys travel to Thailand for young girls, and a lot German guys travel to Hungry for young boys. But I never know that sex tourism also include middle aged white women going to Haiti in the 70s for young black guys. That's a story a new film "Heading South" (Vers le sud) is telling.

Three mid-aged North American women (two Americans and one Canadian) went to Haiti for summer vacation in the 70s, soaking in the sun and their desire for beautiful young Haitian boys. They have what those boys don't have: money and social status. The boys have what the ladies don't have: their youth and bodies. When two of the three ladies want the same handsome 18 years old Legba, the vacation is over.

This is an excellent film. I love this film for its brutal honesty, its originality, its thought provoking subject, and its terrific performance. Money liberates these ladies' sexuality, but can money buy love that they really desire for? Isn't it interesting that these ladies wouldn't lay their eyes on a black guy back home, but they are lusting after these young men in the poorest country? What made the connection between them here in Haiti?

The Darker Side Of Female Sexuality And The Aging Woman

[fwomp · 6/10 · 11 January 2007]

Taking us places we've never been before is one of the excellent ways cinema tells artistic stories. HEADING SOUTH deserves much credit for this aspect.

Rarely (if ever) do we see the darker side of female sexuality, and this is explored in minute detail in the film. But the message doesn't stop there. We also see the up- and ultimate downside of Western culture on a society struggling with its own identity; in this case, Haiti.

Haiti is the poorest nation in this hemisphere, not to mention riddled with an AIDS epidemic and a militaristic government. This comes into stark contrast as we watch Brenda (Karen Young) exit a plane in Port au Prince and walk between the desperate homeless and the gun-toting military. She is quickly whisked away from this ugliness and into an idyllic beach resort by its owner, Frank (Guiteau Nestant). Here she meets up with two other "civilized" women vacationers, Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) and Sue (Louise Portal, who has only the slightest role in the flick). They strike up an interesting if antagonistic relationship, especially whenever they're around the lithe and beautiful Legba (Menothy Cesar), a male prostitute of sorts who "services" the ladies of the resort. Yet much more is going on (and has gone on).

Brenda (a white woman from the States) first met Legba years before and experienced her first orgasm with him ...when she was 45; and he was only fifteen. Because we're in Haiti, though, pedofilia doesn't apply. The laws tend to be lax in that aspect. Brenda explains her first sexual encounter with Legba in brutally interesting terms (using words such as "threw myself" and "animal"). We also witness Ellen's attraction to Legba, which also goes deep (no pun intended). Brenda is 55 years old and knows she's on the downside of her sexual identity with men her own age, so seeks out a distant yet physically fulfilling relationship with Legba, too. Trouble is, though, is that both Ellen and Brenda find themselves more than just physically attracted to Legba. Brenda has no qualms about her feelings, and all but plants herself in his lap whenever she can. But Ellen tries to be more aloof, feigning disinterest in anything beyond physical desire (aka lying to herself). Brenda can see that Ellen wants Legba just as badly as she, and so bitter sparks fly amongst them.

But in the midst of these two battling and somewhat selfish women is Legba himself. Born into poverty, he finds himself trapped between the old Haiti and the possibility of a new life with one of the women from the resort (note: Legba is black, in case you didn't realize that). But relationship ties with his mother and an old flame flicker in his mind, holding him back, and threatening his very existence at important crossroads in the story. He's also more outspoken than most of his other male counterparts at the resort, and tells the women exactly what he thinks ("You look old like that"). This endears him even more to the summer visitors.

Life in Haiti is often vicious and fleeting, and this is brought home to the viewer when we watch Legba being chased through Port au Prince by a gun-wielding madman after someone sees him escorting a white woman around the city (Brenda). Nothing good can come from a relationship with these infrequent guests unless he can get off the island. But can he? Is he willing to let go of his homeland and his family in order to just survive in a distant world? Director Laurent Cantet gives us a very good character study while enveloping it in the political strife surrounding Haiti. But the film's pacing is exceptionally slow and male viewers may very well be turned off by the subject matter. Although female pedofilia does exist, it isn't nearly as rampant as the male version. And men may have a better sense of the separation between sex and love (this is a broad distinction, though, and may only hold true in a Mars Versus Venus sense).

Still, the story is interesting enough thanks to some great acting on the part of old-time sex symbol Charlotte Rampling (FAREWLL, MY LOVELY, 1975), and the first-time role of Menothy Cesar as the unforgettable Legba.

A startling, low key, socially edgy look at middle aged sexual needs...yes!

[secondtake · 7/10 · 24 April 2010]

Heading South (2005)

Charlotte Rampling has made some really unusual films for an actress of her stature, and if these movies are lesser in some ways, they are lifted by her presence, which only seems to grow more interesting as she gets older. Heading South is daring in at least two ways. One is its setting and incidental structure: Haiti just before the age of AIDS. But more striking, Rampling plays one of several middle aged woman finding young black men (or boys) attractive, and willing, sexually, in an out of the way Caribbean beach.

This is edgy stuff for any time, even ours--older white women exploiting (or not, depending on you look at it) these available boys, all with a matter of fact, slightly giddy quality, laced with the usual jealousies and misunderstandings of love and sex anywhere. As if this wasn't enough for a probing plot, a more superficial series of events about the boy, and then the women, too. This second plot deflates the first concern, and sort of brings the movie down to something a little common, and though interesting, not on the order of the psychology and social dangers of the other aspects.

Which is to say, there are enough really strange, disturbing, well made aspects here to make the movie stick with you long after watching it. And that's enough for starters. Give it a chance.

A so-so picture

[soie · 6/10 · 13 July 2006]

This latest from Cantent attempts to grapple with several issues - sexually dissatisfied, ageing women; innocence and experience, and a corrupt government; amongst other things. The film however fails to delve deeply into any of these, offering only teasing glimpses into Haitian life. The characters are only half drawn, and veteran Rampling juices as much as she can from what seems to be a shallow-sketched script. Most frustratingly, the whole film seems to be too theatrical - Ramplings clipped RP tones and calculated gestures, even the monologues seem straight out of a 70s feminist play. Rampling's character, Ellen, claims to feel most at home on the island, yet she seems most awkward and socially conscious when she's on the beach. Most disappointingly, the character of Legba is decidedly tepid, at best enigmatic. The only real consolation are the performances of Lys Ambroise, who plays a restaurant host; and the actress who plays Legba's mother. Karen Young, who plays a Brenda brimming with Valium offers a performance strong enough to sustain interest, but at times too small for the big screen. And of course, who can deny that the views of Menothy Cesar's body are anything less than delicious?

Sex Tourism for Women

[mamlukman · 6/10 · 21 November 2016]

I watched this for a very particular reason: last year I began researching conversions to Islam among Westerners. I found that 75% are women between 15-24. That seemed a bit odd to me...then I read a French report on Islamic extremists--most were, surprisingly, women converts! Then I began thinking about cults...the Manson Family...mostly women...Branch Davidians....mostly women....and so on. Then there is the phenomenon of the kidnapped girls, some of whom had the freedom to run away but refused to do so (Elizabeth Smart, et al.). While watching "Beatles: Eight Days a Week," which is mainly about the concerts the Beatles gave, it struck me that virtually the entire audience was young girls, all hysterical. Why???? Then, when thinking one day about Obama's mother (married a Kenyan student when she was very young, then married an Indonesian), I stumbled across this sub-culture of women who search out exotic locales for sex tourism. It's not a new phenomenon, but I'm not sure when it began-- "Heading South" is supposedly set in 1979. Maybe the sexual revolution of the 1960s unleashed something???

This is a good movie in the sense that it at least tries to take a stab at explaining the women's motivations. A second movie, Dutch, 2016, is "Benzess as Usual," where the son of one of these vacation idylls returns to meet his father. In this case, it's Tunisia. But exactly the same thing is going on--older women using younger, poor men for sex. And, as hinted at in "Headed South" in this case the beach boy is taken to the Netherlands and then Switzerland (by different women!). He marries both, but of course it ends badly. A third movie in this genre is "Paradise Love." In this case, it's German women on the beaches of Mombasa. The location changes, the story is the same. There are also numerous youtube videos on this theme. And then of course there are books like "The White Masai" about a young (!) Swiss woman who marries a Masai--and not an educated, Westernized one, but a native from a village living in a mud hut. It's beyond bizarre.

Another thought-provoker from Cantet

[Chris Knipp · 8/10 · 3 May 2006]

Laurent Cantet's Heading South/Vers le sud begins in the Port au Prince airport. A Haitian woman, with the greatest sweetness and dignity, implores a man she's never met, a resort hotel employee, to take away her teenage daughter with him so that the girl will be safe. The lady explains that her husband had a respectable position but suddenly was disappeared by the Papa Doc regime; now she is penniless. The man refuses to take the girl. Instead he meets a sad-faced, sallow white woman named Brenda (Karen Young) and takes her to the hotel.

Soon Brenda is on the beach where young blacks – the favorite, Legba (Ménothy Cesar), lithe and sweet; the older Neptune (Wilfred Paul); little Eddy (Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz) and others – accompany women in their forties and fifties, of whom we observe Sue (Louise Portal), a French Canadian, and Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) – who almost seems to be in charge.

There is something voyeuristic about the first third of this movie. The way the boys fawn on the women – and the women lap it up -- is more mutually exploitive, racist, political, more starkly rich/poor, young/old – even more starkly hedonistic than we're accustomed to seeing on the screen – so overtly shocking that even before the film has gone into release American critics have taken offense at it. Perhaps most shocking of all, we know this is the poorest and scariest country in the hemisphere at one of the worst times (the Seventies, yet these people are having immense fun, living an idyll.

Cantet is as concerned with the whole situation as he is with the few events that unfold; as concerned with the whole phenomenon of "heading south" as with Brenda's hopeless, perhaps embarrassing, infatuation with Legba, or Ellen's subsequent collapse, the trouble that befalls Legba – these dispersals and dispositions of the action. But the situation is such that something must happen. It's a situation that's satisfying to the participants but fraught with danger.

Human Resource/Resources humaines (1999), Cantet's second film and the first one shown in the US, shows a small factory where a young man who's just come in as part of management joins a strike to support his worker father – even though his father rejects the strike and resents this stand. The film sees labor conflicts in a very personal way, and identification (labor/management, socialist/communist) as flexible. Time Out/L'Emploi du temps (2001), the director's third outing, is also about work, identity, and masks. A man loses his job but out of shame invents a nonexistent one and for months pretends to his family that he's traveling with important new responsibilities, international in nature, when in fact he's just driving around vast stretches of country. Has he lost his job, his identity, or his sanity? A bit of each, because they're intertwined.

Heading South is also about work and masks and ambiguous roles. The white women's Haitian lovers aren't simply sex workers or "gigolos." At least one, the older Neptune, works as a fisherman. Free lancers, they aren't "paid" in any organized way, just slipped some money or given presents. In return the Haitians satisfy the women in ways that can hardly be quantified. Three years ago Brenda seduced Legba at fifteen, after her late husband had been feeding him meals, and she had her first orgasm with the boy, at the age of 45. (She, Ellen, and Sue address the camera directly to describe their situation. Legba, who says it's sexier to talk little and preserve his mystery, never does.) The film's based on three short stories by Haitian writer Dany Lafferière, and the action feels like an updated Somerset Maugham; this is colonialism, and it's people who take foolish risks and get burned.

I don't think the white women are unaware of the awful regime; they just look the other way. Several times when the camera's alone with Legba (that is, away from the white women), we see signs of the corruption, power, and danger close at hand and we realize these can crush Legba – even for almost no reason. When he's taken for a ride in a limo with dark windows we know he's in mortal danger.

There's a seeming contrast between the heart-on-her-sleeve, vulnerable Brenda, from the American South, and cool, sophisticated Ellen, a Brit from Boston who's fluent in French. Ellen cynically says the women all want the same thing – a good time – but in the end it's Brenda who goes on pursuing pleasure and Ellen who returns to the North, her heart and spirit broken. Brenda replaces Ellen; and little Eddy, who already wants to pair off with white women, in time will replace Legba.

Heading South isn't as clearly schematic as Human Resources or as intriguingly strange as Time Out, but brings up a wider and more troubling range of issues. Its up-front look at sexual tourism and the presence of the reborn and quietly magnificent Charlotte Rampling will insure that this third of Laurent Cantet's movies to be distributed in the US will lead to more recognition by the American audience.

Local reactions show Cantet has unintentionally touched American nerves. He's simply cooler about race, class and gender; he's not unaware of anything, but he lets us draw our own conclusions, and he enjoys provocations and ambiguities. He continues to be an interesting filmmaker who has a special skill at showing how public and private issues intersect, and Vers le sud looks as if it will win him both more friends and more enemies. By heading South, he's put himself more on the map.

Clumsy film making and unnecessary «mysteries» spoil a fine subject !

[legentillucide · 7/10 · 5 February 2008]

I found that this movie was often clumsily filmed: static long scenes, some unseen reaction shots, etc. -- almost as if it was hastily filmed -- as economically as possible. Also -- perhaps more for female audiences --, it was filmed in a «physically frustrating» way. Overall, too many important clues to the understanding and logic of the story were unnecessarily «hidden» -- specially the ones dealing with what really happened at the very end to Ledba. There were also unnecessarily «prudish» scene -- after all, this film was filmed in 2004, not in 1954 !!! -- such as the two frontal male nudity scenes in which the lighting (or rather the shadows) camouflaged the genitals. Either you show full nudity or you don't ! I'm referring to two scenes, the first when Legba pulls down his trunks and stands stark nude on the beach at night, facing Brenda. The other, when Sue's Haitian lover climbs into bed where she's lying with most of her body covered with sheets. Another thing I noticed: many people wrote about Legba'a «very beautiful» physique. Although his face is very boyishly charming and handsome, his body is far too slim (his legs seem almost as shapeless as long wooden sticks) -- ironical that his name is... LEGba ! Overall, he does not seem to be very sexually «inspiring» -- he has sensuality, yes, but not much sex appeal. Perhaps the producers couldn't find a more suitable actor...? The same possibility might apply to Karen Young. In spite of her great acting, she looked far older and withered than her mid-forties. And she's far to skinny also (with the same type of legs as Legba's). In the very brief scene were she finishes taking a shower, her very bony and flat chest is seen. But perhaps she was cast ON PURPOSE since a much more attractive actress would seem less convincing as a «sexual tourist» -- although she does play the part of a repressed woman from Georgia who had her first orgasm at 45 with Legba, when he was 15 ! All this being said, the scenery is great, the topic still very actual, humane and important. And there's the presence of the cool and always wonderful Charlotte Rampling who is ALMOST miscast : does a woman as attractive as she STILL is -- even at 55 -- «need» to «retribute» young men for intimate company...? But PERHAPS -- just a supposition -- for some woman, once having «tasted» the... let’s say euphemistically... the «close and warm conviviality» of a «divinely attractive» Haitian man... it's very difficult NOT to long to renew the experience... again and again.

Boring and Overrated

[claudio_carvalho · 3/10 · 3 October 2009]

Three middle-aged women that have boring lives travel to the Hotel Petite Anse, in Port Prince, Haiti, to have good-time with sex and beach. Brenda (Karen Young), from Savannah, Georgia, has left her husband and returned to the hotel seeking out the local gigolo Legba (Ménothy Cesar), a young man with a sculptural body that gave her first orgasm three years ago. However, she finds that Legba is "dating" the lonely Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), a literature teacher from Boston. Ellen introduces the frustrated Canadian Sue (Louise Portal) that works in Montreal in the storage department of a factory to Brenda, and disputes with the new acquaintance the sexual favors of Legba. However, the youngster has a serious problem and is hunted by a violent man.

The deceptive "Vers le Sud" is a boring and overrated soap-opera that goes nowhere. Despite the theme, the director does not dare and makes a conventional movie with no eroticism or sexual tension among the characters that are shallow and uninteresting. Charlotte Rampling is still a beautiful woman but the scene where she mentions that she is fifty-five years old is absolutely unnecessary since she was almost sixty in 2005. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil) "Em Direção ao Sul" ("In the Direction of South")

Searing-- the most complex, controversial movie of the year!

[KrisCheppaikode · 10/10 · 21 October 2005]

I just saw the US premier at the American Museum of Moving Image last night [10/20/05]. Cantet and co. interweave three short stories by Haitian writer Dany Laferriere (not yet translated into English from French as of 10/21/05). Though the scope and themes of the stories differ considerably, "Vers Le Sud" is as shattering and masterful as Cantet's previous feature, "Time Out," and should similarly be talked about for years to come.

Cantet and cinematographer Pierre Milon have shot many incredibly complex emotional exchanges without relying on any obvious dialogue. Their confidence that it would cut together and 'play' so well on screen must be partially due to Cantet's having a co-writer who is also the editor (Robin Campillo). The story is told through subtle reactions, gestures and intonations ala "Time Out," but Vers's dialogue seems both more plentiful and more emotionally transparent.

"Vers" also contains more characters, incidents, and a more complex thematic scope than "Time Out." Where "Time" explored a single character's relation to work, pride, and masculinity, "Vers" explores 3 middle-aged white women's sexual and romantic desire for a teenage Haitian, black male prostitute. Cantet explores the central situation's inherent political, racial, sexual, emotional and age-related issues-- often in the same scene.

In doing so, Cantet / LaFerriere necessarily broach a number of taboo subjects: middle age women being openly sexual on screen, and being sexual with teenagers; women paying male prostitutes; white women with black men; women as one discarded, ignored caste, hooking up with another discarded, ignored caste (3rd world men of color); women giving sexual desire the same primacy in their lives as men traditionally have; the world's richest bedding the world's poorest; the willful blindness of the rich towards the suffering of the poor or foreign; American economic imperialism; the predatory nature of consumerist tourism.

In exploring these issues, Vers provokes a sense of moral/political outrage on par with the very angry, very moving "The Constant Gardener." The tourist women of "Vers" turn a willfully blind eye to the dire political / economic situation that drives vulnerable young men into their beds. To watch these women do this is infuriating; their desire becomes repellent, exploitative.

But at the same moment, we are also made to feel how touchingly human these women's needs are-- for love (Brenda), sex (Ellen) and affection (Sue). We experience their loneliness as achingly poignant, even tragic. During the Q&A, one middle-aged woman in the audience referred to the film as pro-feminist in its emotional honesty, and I agree.

The women's relations with their gigolos appear to be emotional two-way streets, albeit with a much wider lane for the Northerners. The women and young men do share affection; and it isn't hard to understand how the women could fool themselves into believing in the possibility of real love blossoming in these tropical, permissive environs.

But when disagreement or insecurity arises with the gigolos, the women's economic superiority gives them the final word. That the same characters in the same scene can simultaneously evoke nausea and tenderness is a testament to the skills of all involved.

The film feels very French in its tasteful restraint -- the sex is never shown -- and in the way it explores its politically charged themes largely through male/female relationships. The film therefore plays entirely as human drama, and never feels sensationalistic, didactic, or titillating.

I had a few *minor* quibbles with this great film. The performances of actors playing Ellen, Albert and Legba were pitch-perfect. But there were moments in Brenda and Sue's scenes when I felt them 'Acting'-- whether this is attributable to lapses in writing, acting, directing or editing is impossible to know. I enjoyed the monologues, delivered into the camera, but I thought they would have felt less artificial if another character had been written into the rooms with them, for the character to address. I also felt it lasted 1 or 2 scenes longer than necessary in the end.

Some have argued that the film should included more of Legba's perspective, but I disagree. Given the sensitivity of the film as a whole, the nationality of the original short story writer (Haitian), and in conveying Legba's emotions in particular, I'm sure that the storytellers made a conscious decision not to include more of Legba's perspective, and the film's structure is the stronger for it.

In fact, the film could only have been created by a group of artists working at the top of their form. Like "Time Out," there will not be a more complex film than Vers Le Sud this year (and I include my other art-house favorites 2046, Head-On, Last Days, Broken Flowers, Brown Bunny, The New World, and yes, Kung Fu Hustle). Here's hoping Vers gets a proper distribution.

The Story of a Island Paradise Lost

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 15 November 2013]

Per Wikipedia, "In 1779, more than 500 Haitian volunteers from Saint-Domingue, Haiti under the command of Comte d'Estaing, fought alongside American colonial troops against the British in the Siege of Savannah, one of the most significant foreign contributions to the American Revolutionary War."

In later years, the destinies of the two countries would diverge. Though the United States would endure a tragic civil war, its story would be fairly stable. Haiti would suffer through colonialism, a slave revolution and untold coups.

Again per Wikipedia, "In January 1914, British, German and US forces entered Haiti, ostensibly to protect their citizens from civil unrest at the time. In an expression of the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the United States occupied the island in 1915. US Marines were stationed in the country until 1934... Haitian traditionalists, based in rural areas, were highly resistant to American-backed changes, while the urban elites wanted more control. Together they helped gain an end to the occupation in 1934"

In the 1970s, "Baby Doc" Duvalier was in power. He and those close to him were alleged to have extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from Haiti's economy. It is during this time that Heading South takes place.

The film primarily takes place at a beachfront hotel that caters to tourists. There we meet three women (Brenda, Ellen and Sue) from Canada, Boston and Savannah who consider the location idyllic. It is true that resorts can operate largely separate from their surrounding environments. They can feel like islands, insulated from the usual cares of the world.

The hotel serves as the intersection of two cultures. Employees are Haitian, tourists are not. In fact, the three women are there specifically to enjoy what they see as the island's simpler, uninhibited way of life. A young man named Legba represents that lifestyle. Two of them spend their energies and monies on Legba to gain his attentions, sexual and otherwise. The third woman says she is "in love" with Neptune, another native who exchanges favors with her.

In the beginning of the film, the viewer is confronted with questions about sexual double standards and women's liberation. Voice-overs and monologues spoken to the camera augment the action, revealing the joys these women experience in their sexual retreat. They are no longer confined by the mores of their home societies. In effect, they operate extra-culturally, unjudged (they think).

As the story progresses, we are given glimpses into Legba's life outside the hotel property. We see the surrounding poverty, abuse of power and--through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend--the horrible realities of an oppressive and corrupt regime.

In the end, the cultures collide and the illusory existence of the women is brutally exploded. Under tragic circumstances, we see their underlying personalities--dishonest, uncoping, self-conscious and even paranoid. Brenda chooses the only coping mechanism she can perceive--to search for another island.

The voice-overs and monologues serve to break up the action of the film. Likewise, forays away from the hotel and some portions that deal with the attitudes and perceptions of the hotel manager disrupt the flow of the film. But that works. It creates a feeling of imbalance that visitors to another culture often experience, reminding us that the story of these three women is not operating in a vacuum.

Filmgoers might take different messages from the narrative, which is fine. Questions are raised that the viewer must confront--a real indication that Heading South achieves its purpose.

A disappointment

[walkerbarrie · 5/10 · 7 March 2006]

One of those films that bit off more than it could chew. The subject could hardly be more challenging and raises multiple, complex issues : female sexuality, male prostitution, North- South relations. But the treatment somehow fails to tackle any of them convincingly. The film is surprisingly claustrophobic, most of it taking place in a "huit clos" atmosphere with mostly close-up and medium shots - this is presumably the director's choice, but the effect, as far as I was concerned, was to make it feel like one of those rather unsuccessful screen versions of stage plays. Much of the dialogue sounded thin and false to my ear. One good point - Karen Young's sensitive portrayal of Brenda. Charlotte Rampling did almost too well what was expected of her and the resultant performance is perhaps a trifle predictable.

Trouble in paradise

[JohnDeSando · 27 September 2006]

"Older women are best, because they always think they may be doing it for the last time." Ian Fleming

Women in love . . . or lust . . . or longing. Heading South, set in Haiti in the '70's, is paradise for needy but wealthy middle-aged women. Young black men are willing to share their love for either dollars or gifts, while the women get something they can't buy elsewhere: respect and orgasms. It all seems much purer than men seeking young girls in Thailand, yet there is usually trouble in paradise.

Three intertwining stories are told into camera of Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), who regularly comes here and has become attached to young Legba (Menothy Cesar); Brenda (Karen Young), who came once before with her husband and now threatens to steal Legba from Ellen; and Sue, an overweight, brassy Canadian. Nothing much happens but some petty jealousiesover Legba, until director Cantet goes outside the circle of thismodest resort where Papa Doc's dictatorship touches quietly on theirlives. In fact, the most powerful part of the film occurs in the opening scene, where a black mother tries to give away her daughter to a prosperous black man in order to avoid the child's being taken from her, as often happens to poor blacks in Haiti.

Although a couple of the black men are filmed naked, and Brenda's breasts are revealed after a shower, there is little sex to spice up the film, regardless of the sexy premise. If Heading South had done more with the political and social unrest on the island, as a metaphor for the women's unrest at the resort, there would have been a much more substantial film. We are left with a not very interesting plot bolstered by very interesting and beautiful older actresses, Rampling and Young.

Sort of heading in the right direction, with the best of intentions.

[johnnyboyz · 6/10 · 22 May 2009]

If the roles in terms of gender within Heading South had been reversed, there'd surely be some sort of mass outcry. The film might've veered away from the style and study it actually encompasses and turned into a lad-orientated picture about young men abroad, treating the respective nation like it was there own. Such is a way of pointing out the little things that would make a big difference in a film like Heading South; a picture that tells the story of white, middle-aged, western women in the Caribbean nation of Haiti looking for strapping, young men whom they pay for sex but additionally trying to find some sort of solace within themselves.

As it is, I found Heading South to be a border-line success, but a success regardless. The film covers Ellen (Rampling); Brenda (Young) and Sue (Portal), three women who have made regular trips to the nation of Haiti over the years for certain reasons. For the benefit of the first-time audience member, who's seeing the film for the first time, their visits are established to be sporadic enough, allowing us to consider them minute fish-out-of-their-respective-waters and thus; we can enjoy the film as a first time visitor ourselves as this strange, new world complete with those that inhabit it is unfolded before our own eyes.

What strikes me on some further reading is that the film was actually written by two men, one named Robin Campillo and the other being the director himself, a certain Laurent Cantet. The film was actually based on a series of short stories by Dany Laferrière. The film isn't really about sex tourism in Haiti, or any other nation, in fact it isn't really about sex tourism at all. The film does not attempt to explore what drives people to go to these places and nor does it treat the material in any sort of ominous or sordid manner. The idea to have the action set in Haiti is a very deliberate one; Haiti mostly being put across here as a lush, colourful and tropical place with beaches and sunshine creating a fluffy, lush atmosphere. The film may have been very different in tone and study had it taken its ideas and background to do with sex tourism and shifted everything to a rainy, cold and rundown Amsterdam or in the Far East. Maybe Thailand, for example.

But do not think the film is a glorification of anything in particular. Haiti and the setting of a place sex tourism is rife is used as a bedded down, and very slow, isolated area for these women to just come together and interact following a supposed shunning back home. Nobody is going to travel thousands of miles just so that they can interact with people they could interact with at home, but these women do and it's done deliberately. It is a finding of peace in some regards; a small garden of Eden in which nothing else exists or matters on the outside and somewhere in which these women can feel important.

The film begins with Brenda touching down and being transported to an idyllic haven in which quality food in good restaurants; nice hotels, warm weather and quaint beaches are the order of the day. This is all shared with other women of her age and predicament, whilst young; attractive black; male locals skirt around in not much bar swimming trunks. They are not allowed near the restaurant and do not say or do much unless requested to – it is not so far from some kind of Utopian, female supremacy-driven paradise; cut off from all apart from those lucky enough to know where it is and be able to frequent it. For a male to come up with this scenario and write short stories about it only for a further two to come along and produce a film out of it is quite interesting; significantly in a sense linked to do with including real life experiences; feelings; opinions or, indeed fantasies into your own written texts.

In order to get to 'Eden' however, Brenda must be transported through the slums of Port-au-Prince, a very deliberate tactic by the director as the background to the 'real' Haiti is placed just the other side of a car window, Brenda keeping her head faced front for most of the journey – ever focused on where she'll soon be. With this idea comes the slight study Heading South wants to make. One such local male whom frequents the beach goes by the name of Legba (Cesar), played by an actor of no considerable note which leaves me thinking he was indeed a local. Legba attracts the fondness of more than one woman but runs foul of another local individual that sees them play out a chase sequence. The point being that, while these somewhat pompous Western women come to Haiti for 'escape' and a little slice of heaven, given the chance, some of the more accustomed Haitians would not mind getting out.

But as I said earlier on, Haiti acts as a lush and appealing place. The hard-boiled and street-level gritty stuff works on a basic level, as does the idea that below the utopia is, in fact, a dystopia. We cannot be fed an hour of drawn out, beautiful locales and then be expected to suddenly slip into dank, depressive mode when in appears one of the beach boys is living a troubled life linked to crime; often gives his earnings to his struggling mother and those that sell drinks have their business trashed. The shift doesn't work. But Heading South does on the whole, and won me over by the end with its love story involving people we do not immediately come to identify with.

Allegorical Haiti

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 January 2019]

Am very fond of foreign language cinema, my knowledge and exposure of which continuing to broaden all the time with the more seen of it. Likewise with French as a language, an accessible language (it and German were always the easiest to get my head round when studying them, while singing in Italian a lot), full of poetry, and wonderful and very rewarding to sing in.

'Heading South' features one of the bravest and most controversial subjects of any of Laurent Cantet's films, and this is a director with films containing subjects and themes that are quite daring to cover. Ones which his films handle quite laudably and intelligently, if not always perfectly with more development tending to be needed. 'Heading South' is not one of Cantet's most accessible films and is one that will divide viewers more than some of his other films. Having said that, that is not saying that it is a bad film. Actually found myself mostly intrigued and impressed by it, while not finding myself completely satisfied or as emotionally invested in it as much as a few of Cantet's other films.

Once again, 'Heading South' is not a cheap film to look at and the atmospheric and picturesque setting is complemented nicely by the slick photography. The music is not as atmosphere enhancing as that for 'Time Out' for example, but fits well, appeals in sound and the placement is never questionable. Cantet directs with remarkable skill and efficiency, clearly engaging with the material and balancing it surprisingly well generally. The script is thought-provoking and avoids heavy-handedness generally despite its controversial/risky subject.

Charlotte Rampling is both cool and brittle, excelling in making a character that seemed credible and worth investing in. Karen Young and Menothy Cesar successfully avoid the shallow caricature trap too, not everybody will find that but that's just my stance. The central relationship is rich in tension and emotion, as well as being surprisingly grounded, and the subject is handled with far more subtlety than one naturally thinks.

For me though, the writing could have delved in deeper and been more insightful. Backgrounds and motivations were on the vague side, particularly with Cesar.

Would also have given the subject a wider focus, sometimes coming over as a bit narrow, and the ending just peters out.

All in all, good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Uncomfortable questions

[stensson · 8/10 · 21 August 2006]

Everyone despises male sex tourism. But there also is a female counterpart. This movie tells about middle-aged women, going to Haiti in the 70s. They give the native boys presents and get sex instead.

But that's not the whole truth. This is also about love tourism, because obviously these women have serious crushes on particularly one boy.

Is it just another form of imperialism or is it more complex? Why do we somehow pity these women, while we're condemning men in the same situation? This movie puts questions you didn't want to hear and turns things around.

Major Disappointment

[irishfilmbuff · 3/10 · 10 August 2006]

When I first heard about this film I was determined to go see it as it sounded like the makings of a great film. It did have the makings of a great film, but unfortunately they didn't make a great film out of it! It was boring, tension-free and uneventful. It was impossible to empathise with any of the main characters as none of them had strong enough characters to provoke any interest from the viewer. The fact that it was set in Haiti during Baby Doc's reign of terror should have meant that there was a palpable sense of fear or dread throughout the entire film...there was none, apart from very brief moments. Even the central theme of older ladies travelling to a poor country to use local young men as sex toys for the duration of their holiday wasn't explored in any depth. Overall, a disappointing experience.

Fun in the sun with the natives

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 24 July 2006]

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world attracts a special kind of sexual tourism. It doesn't involve men looking for kinky sex, or men looking for women, instead it is mainly older women who like to spend some time with the young men they met at the beaches of the different resorts they patronize. The sex is an adventure as well as something they could well afford. After all, the young men these women seek are flattered by the white women that love to have a little time with them while on vacation.

Helen, a repeat visitor, has claimed for her stay the services of the handsome, slim, and charming Legba. Helen, a college professor back in the States, figures in Boston she could only aspire to have sex with older men who are cheating their wives. Here at the resort, she has picked the cream of the crop for her amusement during her summer vacation. Little prepares her to see someone else take claim of Legba, who she regards as her personal property.

Brenda, a woman from Savannah, arrives at the resort, as the story unfolds. Having been there before with her husband, she had met Legba; they had sex and the young man has made her come for more, not knowing she is stepping on someone's territory. Helen, in spite of her welcoming gesture, realizes she is competing with Brenda for the same young man.

Legba and his friends are ubiquitous in other parts of the Caribbean resorts where they tend to go in search of adventure and a bit of money so they can have nice clothes that most of the time are given to them by the tourists. Legba, or his friends, are never accepted to eat at the restaurant, as it's made clear to Brenda by Albert, the hotel manager, who considers them a plague he rather do away with.

Haiti was ruled at the time by Francois Duvalier, or "Papa Doc", one of the bloodiest dictators in the Caribbean. His men roamed the country killing left and right. One of the higher ups in the government takes a young mistress, who happened to be in love with Legba. When she sees him on the street one day, she invites him for a ride, but she is marking him as a condemned man as far as the loyal driver is concerned. Legba will have no chance to keep on living after that encounter.

Laurent Cantet, the huge talent behind the camera, keeps surprising his audience. He co-wrote the screen play with Robin Campillo, resulting in an impressive film in the way it's been set up and the rich texture Mr. Cantet gave to the production.

Charlotte Rampling is seen as Helen. This actress is enjoying a second career in France. Ms. Rampling is one of the best things in the film. One can see in her face the emotions this woman of a certain age is going through after she feels betrayed by Legba. Karen Young, as Brenda, is also quite good. Evidently she never knew love in her marriage and she awakens with Legba in the kind of sex she has never experienced. Louise Portal plays Sue, the Canadian woman who is attracted to the sexual atmosphere and the attention from all the poor youths that look for tourists in order to make ends meet. Menathy Cesar, appears as Legba. Mr. Cesar shows why the women love him. He is charismatic and knows how to move. Lys Ambroise plays Albert, the proud man of a good family now reduced to manage this resort.

Laurent Cantet clearly shows why he is one of the most interesting directors working in films today. He has no fear tackling themes other more established men would shun to deal with. His honesty permeates everything he does. This is a film recommended for mature audiences.

Disappointing ending ..

[pabmen · 3/10 · 15 April 2011]

The movie starts with a brave plot, but then the director does not know how to continue the story. Like most hypocrite viewers that cannot stand the idea of women having sex just for fun (like men do), on the second half of the movie he intends to be "politically correct" by giving a "happy ending" (to men) and a moral teaching (to woman), and to feel better with his own conscience, he finds a way to kill Mr. toy-boy (punishing him for being so "inmoral"). After this, and as opposed to the first half of the film, he shows woman as weak, sweet-hearted, and falling in love all the time, just like most naive men prefer to think about women. Also, to show himself sensible for the world we live in (another typical Hollywood cliché), he tries to condemn Haiti's political situation, but without risking to tell the actual real reasons why this country ended that way ("civilized" countries are mainly responsible). Good start, but a very disappointing ending ..

Brilliantly acted, richly layered story of sex tourism in 1970s Haiti

[roland-104 · 9/10 · 25 September 2006]

French writer-director Laurent Cantet creates films in which an intimate drama of well etched characters plays out within a broader subtext, a backdrop that focuses on some larger social issue. Heading South is about unattached white women of sufficient means to enjoy Caribbean vacations and indulge their sexual appetites with local men. This story is set against the misery of an impoverished underclass in early 1970s Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Charlotte Rampling plays Ellen, a college English teacher in Boston who's been coming to a particular beachfront hotel for years. She spends all summer. Unsentimental, lusty and outspoken, she pays for the attentions of Legba (Ménothy César) a lovely young lad of 18 who can make Ellen come when she merely thinks about him. She has no illusions about this arrangement, or so it seems for a while. She knows that Legba services many tourists like her, makes his living this way, probably supports his family as well. She's the ringleader of a circle of women, each with a favorite local gigolo in tow.

Upsetting this idyllic arrangement, Brenda (Karen Young) arrives on the scene. She's the antithesis of Ellen, a mopey, sad sack of a woman, 10 years Ellen's junior but with none of the older woman's appeal. Brenda's a terminal romantic and entirely self-centered. She had in fact seduced Legba three years earlier, when he was 15, has thought of him daily since then, and, following a divorce, is now returning to find and take up with him again. She's in love.

Brenda boldly lays claim to Legba, who tries to service her on the side while still maintaining his connection to Ellen. No way. Initially amused by Brenda's earnestness, Ellen gradually reveals that she is not as tough as she would have people believe. She is deeply hurt and angry in fact when Legba rejects her to spend more time exclusively with Brenda.

Legba is playing his own game. He's not in love with Brenda. But she is giving him plenty of gifts. If anything, he toys with her sober infatuation, perhaps finds it a refreshing change of pace from Ellen's frankness and mock insults. But Brenda isn't playing by the rules. This throws everybody off and ratchets up tensions.

We begin to see into Legba's his town life, where the picture is far from rosy. A destitute mother. An old girlfriend who has become the mistress of a wealthy gangster but begs for Legba's company. We see him interrupt a street soccer match to rescue his young sidekick Eddy from possible arrest or worse by a cop who drinks a pop from the boy's sidewalk stand without paying, and kicks over the stand when Eddy protests.

Ellen learns that Legba is in trouble, hunted by a gunman who works for the gangster. She begs him to let her help, to protect him, even to go to Boston with her to live, but he won't hear of it. We can see that she cares for his welfare in a genuine sense. But the gulf between them, which Ellen had lulled herself into ignoring, is ever present to Legma.

We receive a fuller, more insightful picture of Haitian sensibilities toward whites from Albert (Lys Ambroise), the chief factotum of management at the hotel. We get Albert's take through a long aside, a soliloquy spoken into the camera, directly to us. Ellen, Brenda and Sue take their turns giving us information on their backgrounds and sentiments in using the same dramatic device. Always a perilous film tactic, it works well here. Albert's contempt for the white overclass runs deep, a passion that had been passed down from his grandparents.

He speaks of the power of American money over the poor local population. Where the French stole their independence, and the Duvaliers stole their worldly goods, the Americans are stealing their dignity, and right under Albert's nose. As he sees it, the young native men hustling tourist women, trading sex for money and baubles, are degrading themselves, but feel forced to do so to make a living.

For his part, Legba is also deeply sensitive to these circumstances. He has little trouble recognizing Brenda as his original seducer, and is enraged when he sees her dirty dancing with young Eddy on the beach. It isn't at all clear that any of the women, not Brenda, not even Ellen, can fathom the broader context and harsher ironies underlying their connections with their boyfriends. Ellen says she has no interest in going into town, that it's a bore. We can surmise that Legba would much prefer to live his life among his own people and no longer prostitute himself. Ellen's notion of how best to help him is, for all her seeming savvy, naive.

We can hope that the screenplay is authentic, for it is based on three short stories by the native Haitian novelist Dany Laferrière, who was born in 1953 in Port-au-Prince. He was a late teenager himself in the years when this script is set. He abruptly left Haiti in 1976, fearing for his life, and has lived in Montreal since (spending some time in Miami as well).

Cantet never insults the viewer's intelligence by dispensing sociologic wisdom or overreaching with his chosen conceits. The characters play out their lives on vividly realistic terms. By the end some people have died, and the principal women have exchanged psychological places. Ellen, now bereft and vulnerable, goes home to Boston and, presumably, a life of embitterment. In the final scene we see a refreshed Brenda, journeying off to tour more islands, bound for new adventures, now acting the sexual predator, but dragging her wrecking ball behind her. Filmed on location in Haiti. (In French & English) My grades: 8.5/10 (A-) (Seen on 09/21/06)

brave but flawed character driven piece on female sexuality

[LunarPoise · 5/10 · 25 March 2013]

Brenda arrives in 70s Haiti looking to find the then 15-year-old Legba, a street waif she took in and ultimately seduced, awakening her own long suppressed sexual longings. When she gets there the boy has become a man, a male prostitute servicing defiant but ultimately self-deluding middle-aged women.

Karen Young is excellent as the clingy, needy Brenda, hopelessly believing that romantic love can prevail amongst the sexual and political squalor of corrupt, poverty-stricken Haiti. Her performance is matched by Charlotte Rampling as steely Ellen, the alpha female of the beach-and-boys set who appears to be in control, until Brenda's arrival strips her facade away and shows she, too, is hopelessly lost. The women see themselves as enjoying a pleasure their own Western world has denied them, wantonly ignorant of their own corrosive influence.

Ménothy Cesar as Legba is a powerful screen presence and brings humanity and surprises to a difficult role. The film makes strange choices: having characters talk directly to camera documentary style, for example. This economically condenses much of the story, but ultimately felt like a cheat. Legba's ill-fated dalliance with an ex serves to seal his fate in a way that wraps things up too neatly and so conflicts with the greater socioeconomic, and human, issues that the film had attempted to introduce.

Wonderful acting, but a storyline that is at times pat and ultimately too earnest in its telling.

Boys in the sand

[bob998 · 9/10 · 27 April 2006]

Laurent Cantet's new film reminds me a little of those Graham Greene novels about well-meaning Westerners who get mixed up in disastrous situations in third-world countries; think of The Quiet American, Our Man In Havana, or The Comedians, set in Haiti also. For the confused capitalist white men, Cantet substitutes middle-aged randy white women soaking up the sun and Tequila Sunrises outside Port-au-Prince. Thankfully there is very little political theory being spouted by the main characters, although Ellen cannot resist some harsh comments directed at Brenda late in the film.

Charlotte Rampling as Ellen has relatively few scenes, but leaves a great impression as a college professor whose value in the sexual marketplace shoots up when she leaves Boston for the tropics. She doesn't seem very bitter about this, just accepts it as part of the aging process. Karen Young is new to me, most of her work has been done for TV. Her part is different, more spiritual, less grounded in the realities of here and now. She has less inner resources to cope with the chaos and violence of Haiti. Louise Portal is one of my favorite Quebec actresses, known to foreign viewers through Denis Arcand's very funny Decline of The American Empire. Here she plays a woman who is simpler than Ellen or Brenda, happier and less conflicted about growing old.

Cantet's direction of actors and description of the poverty and desperation, as well as the beauty of the Haitian locales is very effective. I wondered what he was going to do after Time Out, that wintry cry of despair from the French Alps, and he hasn't disappointed me.

The real problem with Heading South

[skay_baltimore · 5/10 · 2 April 2013]

The real problem with this movie is NOT that it depicts "women having fun", as another reviewer stated. It's that the women who were having the fun were disproportionately powerful in relation to the men with whom they were having the fun. The relationships were clearly exploitative, and the women were clearly lacking in awareness into their own motivations. So, for example, at least two of the three women (Ellen and Brenda) were in love, or at the very least emotionally dependent upon their relationship with the main male protagonist, Legba. Yet they seemed, for the most part, to be oblivious to their own inner workings and feelings.

As such, it was impossible to feel any empathy for any of the women in this film. If that was the director's intent, then he succeeded. Furthermore, if it was the director's intent to show the power imbalance between the women and the men in this film, then I'd have to say he succeeded in that as well. But ironically, these apparent successes were achieved in spite of, rather than because of, the words the characters were saying. And that's usually a bad thing in a film. Unless, of course, that really was the director's intent from the start. In that case, he did an excellent job of portraying stupid, selfish, arrogant, Colonialist middle aged white women exploiting the poor residents of an oppressed country.